Quantitative HPLC–UV Study of Lignans in Anthriscus sylvestris

Wild chervil (Anthriscus sylvestris) is a wild-growing plant from the Apiaceae family, used as a food in Europe and eastern Asia. Due to its high content of lignans known to possess anti-inflammatory, antiproliferative, antiviral and other activities, it represents a potential functional food. However, quantitative data on lignans are still scarce and limited to deoxypodophyllotoxin, nemerosin and yatein. In this paper, a newly developed and validated reverse-phase HPLC–UV method was used to evaluate the content of 14 lignans in both aerial parts and roots of A. sylvestris. The most abundant root components were found to be deoxypodophyllotoxin (2.0–42.8 mg/g), nemerosin (2.0–23.4 mg/g), yatein (1.1–18.5 mg/g), podophyllotoxone (0.7–20.5 mg/g), guaiadequiol (0.8–8.3 mg/g) and dimethylmatairesinol (0.1–5.2 mg/g). Despite the high intra-population variability, a general trend of an increased lignan content during plant development could be observed in the root samples, whereas an opposite trend was observed in the herb samples. A validation study indicated that some of the investigated compounds—7-oxoaryltetralins and dibenzylbutyrolactones—have low stability and require cold storage in the dark. Furthermore, dibenzylbutyrolactones were confirmed to undergo a fast cis–trans isomerization; therefore, only the total content of these isomers should be reported.